Toggle navigation
Yrd.ca
Home
Things Worth Knowing
Wise Facts
Curious Facts about Authors
Science Experiments
To Give Silver-plate A Lustre
Dissolve alum in a strong ley, and scum it carefully; then mix it up
with soap, and wash your silver utensils with it, using a linen rag.
To Give Silver The Colour Of Gold
To Load Air Balloons With Stars Serpents &c &c When You Fill
More
To Extract The Silver Out Of A Ring That Is Thick Gilded So That The
Gold may remain entire. Take a silver ring that is thick gilded. Make a little hole through the gold into the silver; then put the ring into aqua fortis, in a warm place: it will dissolve the silver, and the gold will remain whole. ...
To Fill A Bladder With Hydrogen Gas
Apply a bladder, previously wetted and compressed, in order to squeeze out all the common air, to the piece of tobacco-pipe inserted in the cork stopper of the phial, (as described in the experiment above.) The bladder will thus be filled with hydro...
To Find How Many Square Yards It Would Require To Write All The
Changes of the Twenty-four Letters of the Alphabet, written so small, that each Letter should not occupy more than the hundredth part of a square Inch. By adopting the plan of the preceding article, the changes of the twenty-four letters will be fo...
To Find The Difference Between Two Numbers The Greatest Of Which Is
unknown. Take as many nines as there are figures in the smallest number, and subtract that sum from the number of nines. Let another person add that difference to the largest number, and, taking away the first figure of the amount, add it to the la...
To Find The Number Of Changes That May Be Rung On Twelve Bells
Multiply the numbers from 1 to 12 continually into each other, as follow: and the last product will give the number required. 1 2 -- 2 3 -- 6 4 ...
To Fire Rockets Without Sticks You Must Have A Stand Of A Block
of wood, a foot diameter, and make the bottom flat, so that it may stand steady: in the centre of the top of this block draw a circle two inches and a half diameter, and divide the circumference of it into three equal parts; then take three pieces of ...
To Fire Sky-rockets Under Water
You must have stands made as usual, only the rails must be placed flat instead of edgewise, and have holes in them for the rocket-sticks to go through; for if they were hung upon hooks, the motion of the water would throw them off: the stands being ...
To Fix One Rocket On The Top Of Another When Sky-rockets Are Fixed
one on the top of another, they are called towering rockets, on account of their mounting so very high. Towering rockets are made after this manner: Fix on a pound rocket a head without a collar; then take a four-ounce rocket, which may be headed or b...
To Fix Several Rockets To The Same Stick Two Three Or Six
sky-rockets, fixed on one stick, and fired together, make a grand and beautiful appearance; for the tails of all will seem but as one of an immense size, and the breaking of so many heads at once will resemble the bursting of an air-balloon. The manag...
To Form Figures In Relief On An Egg
Design on the shell any figure or ornament you please, with melted tallow, or any other fat oily substance; then immerse the egg into very strong vinegar, and let it remain till the acid has corroded that part of the shell which is not covered with ...
To Give A Ghastly Appearance To Persons In A Room
Dissolve salt in an infusion of saffron and spirits of wine. Dip some tow in this solution, and, having set fire to it, extinguish all other lights in the room. ...
To Give Silver The Colour Of Gold
Dissolve in common aqua fortis as much silver as you please. To eight ounces of silver, take four ounces of hepatic aloes, six ounces of turmeric, and two ounces of prepared tutty, that has been several times quenched in urine. Put these to the solu...
To Give Silver-plate A Lustre
Dissolve alum in a strong ley, and scum it carefully; then mix it up with soap, and wash your silver utensils with it, using a linen rag. ...
To Load Air Balloons With Stars Serpents &c &c When You Fill
your shells, you must first put in the serpents, rains, &c., or whatever they are composed of, then the blowing powder; but the shells must not be quite filled. All those things must be put in at the fuse-hole, but marrons being too large to go in at ...
To Make A Ring Suspend By A Thread After The Thread Has Been
burned. Soak a piece of thread in urine, or common salt and water. Tie it to a ring, not larger than a wedding-ring. When you apply the flame of a candle to it, it will burn to ashes, but yet sustain the ring. ...
To Make A Rocket Form An Arch In Rising Having Some Rockets Made
headed according to fancy, and tied on their sticks, get some sheet tin, and cut it into round pieces about three or four inches diameter; then on the stick of each rocket, under the mouth of the case, fix one of these pieces of tin 16 inches from the...
To Make An Eolian Harp
This instrument may be made by almost any carpenter: it consists of a long narrow box of very thin deal, about five or six inches deep, with a circle in the middle of the upper side, of an inch and a half in diameter, in which are to be drilled smal...
To Make An Old Gold Chain Appear Like New
Dissolve sal ammoniac in urine, boil the chain in it, and it will have a fine gold colour. ...
To Make Any Number Divisible By Nine By Adding A Figure To It
If (for example) the number named be 72,857, you tell the person who names it to place the number 7 between any two figures of that sum, and it will be divisible by 9; for if any number be multiplied by 9, the sum of the figures of the product will ...
To Make Artificial Coruscations
There is a method of producing artificial coruscations, or sparkling fiery meteors, which will be visible, not only in the dark but at noon-day, and that from two liquors actually cold. The method is this:--Fifteen grains of solid phosphorus are to ...
To Make Beautiful Transparent Coloured Water
The following liquors, which are coloured, being mixed, produce colours very different from their own. The yellow tincture of saffron, and the red tincture of roses, when mixed, produce a green. Blue tincture of violets, and brown spirit of sulphur,...
To Make Crackers
Cut some stout cartridge-paper into pieces three inches and a half broad, and one foot long; one edge of each of these pieces fold down lengthwise about three-quarters of an inch broad; then fold the double edge down a quarter of an inch, and turn t...
To Make Luminous Writing In The Dark
Fix a small piece of solid phosphorus in a quill, and write with it upon paper; if the paper be carried into a dark room, the writing will appear beautifully luminous. ...
To Make Moulds Of Horn
If you wish to take the impression of any coin, medal, &c., previously anoint it with oil; then lay the horn shavings over it in its softened state. When dry, the impression will be sunk into the horn; and this will serve as a mould to re-produce, e...